You will have two problems.
The OEM license will die with the old hardware.
You knew that. Basically you have lost no money.
You paid half for OEM, so get another new number with the
half you saved before<grin> (I hope it is still sold...)

The other part is with the hardware DRIVER changes.
People have various ways to work around that.
Basically you need to re-enumerate the drivers and their installations.

An easy way is with a backup IMAGE made with AcronisTrueImage
with the Plus Pack. (IF you already have that.)
It is designed to totally handle the SECOND part of this.
(WPA will cause the License to fail and you will need to reactivate
OR to get a new license.) (There are MANY loopholes and/or exceptions
to that so I almost hate to say it.)

I "moved" an old OEM-XP-Pro to an ATOM MB and all went
exactly as planed. (And the license was trashed in the process.)

Some people have said MS is a little lax when you don't improve the
computer with all the latest and greatest features. Example, match the
old features as much as you can and tell them it was "as close" as you could get...
Improvements make it a new computer, according to the license.
In any event, it can't hurt to ask. It seems to be a "luck of the draw" thing,
and who you get when you call, and how nice you are...

Rick Glazier

From: "Dean Kukral" 
> I've never used an oem Windows license on any of my computers, except my 
> WHS (Windows Home Server), but, rather, used the full version, so I have 
> no experience with the oem licenses.
> 
> Now I'd like to take the hard drives out of my ancient WHS computer and 
> put them into a newer computer.  (Hand-me-downs, both, but the hard 
> drives are new compared to the older computer.  WD 640GB )
> 
> I realize that I'm not licensed to do this with the oem license, so I'm 
> willing - if I go through with this - to purchase another copy of WHS to 
> run with the new mb and cpu but keeping the old hard drives which 
> contain all my back-up data and then some.
> 
> The question is:  how does it work to use the new license on the 
> computer, while keeping all the data and settings on the current disks?
> 
> Do I just do an "upgrade" or something?
> 
> I realize that about two of us on PCBUILD are using WHS, :), but this is 
> the same kind of problem that you'd have if a surge had blown out your 
> mb, cpu, and memory, and you had to replace them, voiding your oem 
> license, but keeping your hard drives and other pieces of hardware.  I 
> don't think that there is anything particularly special about the fact 
> that it is WHS and not some version of Windows.  But, since I've never 
> done this with a Windows oem computer, I don't have any experience along 
> these lines.
> 
> (WHS is based on Windows Server 2003. I don't recommend it to anyone, 
> but since I have been using it, I want to keep it.)
> 
> TIA,
> 
> Dean Kukral

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